Sufjan Stevens will continue to tour in support of this year's excellent Carrie & Lowell, with a newly-announced fall US run.

The tour doesn't bring him back to NYC (which he played three times this year), but it will be nearby for a Jersey City show on Halloween at Loews Jersey Theatre. Tickets for that show go on sale Friday (7/24) at 10 AM with a BrooklynVegan presale starting Thursday (7/23) at 10 AM. Check back here Thursday morning for the password.

After playing NYC's Beacon Theatre back in early April, Sufjan Stevens brought his tour in support of his fantastic new album Carrie & Lowell to NYC last night (5/1) to begin a two-night stand at Brooklyn's recently-reopened Kings Theatre. After opening with the delicate instrumental "Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou" from 2003's Michigan, Sufjan proceeded to play 10 of Carrie & Lowell's 11 tracks all in a row, almost in the exact order as the album tracklist. He didn't talk at all during that section, and he and his backing band (including Dawn Landes, who's playing with him on this tour) kept things mostly as bare-bones as the album. After that part, he played a couple of his more recent songs that fit the stripped-down vibe of this show ("Futile Devices" from The Age of Adz and "The Owl and the Tanager" from All Delighted People), as well as a few Seven Swans cuts, before wrapping up the pre-encore set with Carrie & Lowell closer "Blue Bucket of Gold." Then he returned for an encore of all early-mid '00s songs, including set-closer "Chicago."

The Kings Theatre really was the perfect atmosphere for this kind of show, and both Sufjan and opener Naomi Shelton said on stage how good it was to be on Flatbush Ave. Sufjan ended up telling a story of living in the area and going by Cortelyou Carpets to take a picture of the sign every day.

Sufjan returns to Kings tonight (5/2) with Moses Sumney, which is sold out. More pictures from last night's show, and Sufjan's setlist and a couple videos, below...

There are several references to places within Oregon throughout Carrie & Lowell; it's where Stevens spent three summers, between ages 5 and 8, with his mother and stepfather. These early memories are not just important because they came at a formative point in Stevens' life--they're actually some of the only recollections he has of his mother, who abandoned his family when he was just a year old. Her five-year marriage to Lowell Brams in the early '80s seemingly marked a high-point in a life struck by hardship; Carrie suffered from depression, schizophrenia, and alcoholism, and her contact with Stevens and his siblings, who grew up in Michigan with their dad and stepmother, was intermittent up until her death. [Pitchfork]

Sufjan Stevens is a week away from releasing his new album, Carrie & Lowell (due 3/31 via Asthmatic Kitty), and he's now streaming it in full. It's his most bare-bones album yet, with little more than acoustic guitar, piano and atmospheric textures; and also one of his heaviest lyrically. Much of the album is about the death of his mother Carrie, who as the quote above from Pitchfork's feature on the album points out, didn't have much contact with Sufjan throughout his life. "It was so terrifying to encounter death and have to reconcile that, and express love, for someone so unfamiliar," he said. "Her death was so devastating to me because of the vacancy within me. I was trying to gather as much as I could of her, in my mind, my memory, my recollections, but I have nothing."

Earlier this month, Kendrick Lamar took us by surprise when he revealed that his highly-anticipated followup to good kid, m.A.A.d city would be out in less than three weeks (3/23), but it turns out he's surprised us once again: It's out now!

The album's called To Pimp A Butterfly and it features contributions from George Clinton, Thundercat, Snoop Dogg, Ronald Isley, Bilal, James Fauntleroy, Rapsody and Anna Wise, with production from Flying Lotus, Pharrell Williams, Boi-1da and more. "Hood Politics" samples Sufjan Stevens' "All For Myself" and "How Much A Dollar Cost" appears to be sampling Radiohead's "Pyramid Song." That's the artwork above.

He'll be on tour soon, playing three NYC shows, and openers have now been announced for those. April 11 at Beacon Theatre is with Cold Specks, May 1 at Kings Theatre is with Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens, and May 2 at Kings Theatre is with Moses Sumney (tickets). Those three open various other dates too. Updated dates are listed below...

André de Ridder of Berlin collective Stargaze will be conducting Ensemble LPR at their homebase, LPR aka Le Poisson Rouge on Wednesday (3/11) for the premieres of two new pieces by indie musicians. One is by Mica Levi of Micachu & the Shapes and the other is by David Longstreth of Dirty Projectors. Both Longstreth and Levi will be in attendance but will not be performing. Tickets are on sale.

Dirty Projectors are also on the new MusicNOW - 10 Years compilation with Sufjan Stevens, Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold, Grizzly Bear, Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry, Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, My Brightest Diamond, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Sharon Van Etten and more. The comp is a collection of recordings from Bryce Dessner's MusicNOW Festival. This year's takes place this week, March 11-15. The comp is out today (3/10) and you can stream six of its tracks below.

Other Music is excited to be participating in the Sufjan Stevens Indies Only Silent Listening Party for his upcoming album, "Carrie & Lowell." Fans who pre-order the album from us will have the opportunity on Saturday evening (5-7pm), February 28, to listen to a copy of the LP test pressing through headphones -- and for such an intimate album, that's how it's meant to be heard! Sound Off Experience are providing the transmitter and headphones that will be lent to the group of pre-order customers for this exclusive event at Other Music. These silent listening parties are the only way for fans to hear "Carrie & Lowell" this far out from its March 31 release date, long before any on-line album streams appear or radio stations get a copy of the record. Add to this, the first 25 customers who pre-order the LP will be guaranteed a limited colored vinyl pressing.

Sufjan Stevens has said his new album Carrie & Lowell (due 3/31 via Asthmatic Kitty) would be a return to his folk roots, and its first, just-released single "No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross" definitely seems to be proof of that. It's mostly him and an acoustic guitar, and it's as gorgeous as much of his early work. Check it out below.

It's only February, but Doveman (aka Thomas Bartlett) is already having a characteristically busy year. He's currently on tour as a backing musician for past collaborator Glen Hansard, along with his fellow Sufjan Stevens/The National/Justin Vernon collaborator Rob Moose and his fellow Rufus/Martha Wainwright collaborator Brad Albetta. That tour wraps up this weekend. All remaining dates and a video from Wednesday's (2/10) DC show, below.

Ahead of that tour, Glen Hansard joined Doveman for one of his Burgundy Stain Sessions in Dublin in December, his second session ever to take place outside of NYC. The next session will be back in NYC on May 14 at Le Poisson Rouge. Guests are still TBA, but tickets are on sale now.

In between the Glen Hansard tour and the LPR show, Doveman will be on an international tour with the mostly-Irish supergroup he's part of, The Gloaming. It begins in their home country, where fellow Irish musician Glen Hansard's band The Frames play their 25th anniversary shows this July. All Doveman and Glen Hansard-related dates are listed below.

Doveman also played on and helped mix the upcoming Sufjan Stevens album, Carrie & Lowell, which comes out March 31 via Asthmatic Kitty. Sufjan was just announced for the Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner-curated Eaux Claires Music Festival happening in Wisconsin on July 17 & 18 with Bon Iver, The National, Spoon, The Tallest Man on Earth and more. Tickets are on sale now. Sufjan will also be in NYC three times on his upcoming tour, which ends two days before Doveman's show in Sufjan's hometown.

Sufjan Stevens will be touring this spring, hitting NYC for shows at Beacon Theatre on April 11 and Kings Theatre on May 1. Those shows went on sale last week and immediately sold out, but Sufjan's now added a second Kings Theatre show, happening May 2. Tickets are on presale now (password: KINGSFAN) and the general on-sale starts 10 AM on Friday (2/6).

The music is performed by Mr. Stevens, on keyboards and electronics, and Yarn/Wire, a contemporary chamber group of two pianists and two percussionists. Although one segment had a beat on drum and rattle, vaguely suggesting Native American music (the rodeo includes a Native American parade in traditional costumes) the score avoided Oregon's local color for what might be BAM's local color: minimalist contemplation. It was full of glimmering sounds -- bowed vibraphone, pretty piano chords -- with, now and then, something staticky or sprockety from Mr. Stevens's electronics. For each segment -- concentrating on one rodeo event, intercutting various competitors and performers -- Mr. Stevens chose a strategy and stuck to it: a certain texture, a certain beat, perhaps with chromatic meanderings, perhaps not. Calf roping got running, Bachian counterpoint, while a segment with a lone calf had Yarn/Wire singing a cappella harmonies. [NY Times]

Sufjan Stevens wrapped up the world premiere of his new piece, Round-Up, earlier this week, which ran from January 20-25 at BAM. The quote above is from NY Times' review of one of the performances. Did you catch one?

As you may know, Sufjan's next project is his upcoming album, Carrie & Lowell, which is due out March 31 via Asthmatic Kitty. He's calling it a return to his folk roots, which is what made us fall in love with him in the first place. Tickets for his tour in support of it go on sale at 10 AM local time today (1/30). The NYC shows happen at Beacon Theatre on April 11 (tickets) and at the newly refurbishedKings Theatre on May 1 (tickets).

As previously mentioned, Sufjan Stevens is releasing a new album, Carrie & Lowell, on March 31 via Asthmatic Kitty. He just wrapped up a run of his new piece, Round-Up, at BAM, and now he's announced a lengthy spring tour in support of the new album. It kicks off in Philly on April 10 and hits NYC the next night at Beacon Theatre (4/11), and then returns to NYC for a show at Brooklyn's newly refurbishedKings Theatre on May 1. Tickets for the whole tour go on sale at 10 AM local time on Friday (1/30) with a Ticketmaster presale starting 10 AM on Tuesday (1/27) and a venue presale starting 10 AM on Wednesday (1/28). Presale password is EUGENE.

Sensitive 2000s indie kids are probably having a good day, because not only did Death Cab for Cutie announce a new album, but Sufjan Stevens did too. While it seems unlikely that the new Death Cab will actually sound like their aughts output, the press release says Sufjan's new album is a return to his folk roots. It's called Carrie & Lowell and will be out March 31 via Asthmatic Kitty. Casey Foubert, Laura Veirs, Nedelle Torrisi, Sean Carey, Ben Lester, and Doveman (aka Thomas Bartlett) all contributed to the album. That's the artwork above. Tracklist and trailer video below.

Sufjan Stevens will be presenting the world premiere of his new piece, Round-Up, in Brooklyn at BAM from January 20-25, part of BAM's 2015 Winter/Spring Season. Here's the premise:

In this BAM commissioned work, shown on the Steinberg Screen, Stevens turns his gaze to the rodeo, in all its bull-riding, calf-roping, and barrel-racing glory. With slow-motion footage shot by sibling filmmakers Aaron and Alex Craig at the 2013 Pendleton Round-Up in Oregon--and featuring Stevens on electronics and new-music ensemble Yarn/Wire performing piano and percussion--Round-Up is a musical and cinematic portrait of a classic American tradition.

Subscriptions are on sale now to Friends of BAM and go on sale Monday (11/17) to the general public. Single tickets go on sale December 1 to Friends of BAM and December 8 to the general public.

Sufjan also appears in NYC sooner than that for Cyndi Lauper's 'Home for the Holidays' show at Beacon Theatre on December 6 which also includes Cyndi herself, 50 Cent, Patty Griffin, Salt N Pepa, STRFKR, Metric singer Emily Haines and more. Tickets are on sale now. Full lineup below.

Trombonist Ryan Keberle has played as a member of Sufjan Stevens' Age of Adz band, St. Vincent & David Byrne's band, and appeared with Sufjan, Bryce Dessner and Nico Muhly at their Planetarium shows. He's also played with Escort, The Welcome Wagon, Nedelle Torrisi, Alicia Keys and more. He leads his own Brooklyn-based group, Catharsis, who will release their new album, Into The Zone, on September 30 which features collaborations with Chilean singer Camila Meza. His time playing with Sufjan Stevens (and being a longtime fan) inspired him to cover "Djohariah" last year, and now he takes on another Sufjan song, "Sister" (from Seven Swans) as a bonus track to Into The Zone. Here's what Ryan had to say about his Sufjan influence:

I, like so many others, spent the majority of my 20's listening to the music of Sufjan Stevens. Most good music connects with me on a deep emotional level, but there are those rare composers whose music moves me in ways that I've only otherwise experienced through sex, drugs, alcohol, good friendship and great comedy. My list of composers with this kind of musical emotional power is short and includes the likes of Lennon and McCartney, Maurice Ravel, Duke Ellington, and Maria Schneider, and after listening to Sufjan Stevens' music for the past 10 years now, I have officially added him to this list. In 2010, I had the great fortune to not only perform with Sufjan, but tour the world with him, performing the music from his last LP, "Age of Adz". Aside from being a true dream gig, this time spent on the road with Sufjan was filled with poignant lessons about music and life that I've drawn from thoroughly as I continue to delve deeper into the art of songwriting and band leading.

This track, "Sister", the second Sufjan Stevens "cover" recorded by my band, Catharsis, is a culmination of these lessons learned, both musical and personal. The music, although delivered in a jazz context, has much more to do with the universal and emotional power of all styles of music than it does with current jazz trends. Both Sufjan Stevens tracks we've covered, "Djohariah" and now, "Sister", are songs he wrote inspired by his sisters which I personally relate to having two sisters of my own.

The track premieres in this post and can be streamed below.

Ryan & Catharsis have shows coming up too, including a release show in NYC happening on October 7 at Jazz Standard (116 E 27th St). All dates are listed, with the new Sufjan cover, below...

"There was a certain amount of science to it. An entire week of work experience students left the office thinking that cutting-edge music journalism in 2014 mostly involves calculating which bands have been mentioned most in NME in the past two years, then hunting out references to the bands that influenced those acts online and finally adding up the number of times each influence came up. This gave us a rough list which our editorial team - heads swimming with all of the bands that Wolf Alice (or whoever) have raved on about over 4am ciders - then took to the pub, tore into shreds, fought and shouted about and finally reconstructed in the rundown of 100 you see in the mag today. The Beatles didn't make it. Sorry." [NME[

NME went ahead and listed who they think the 100 most influential musicians and bands are (their latest cover story). Radiohead topped the list. Read the rest with justifications at NME, or just look at their full list below...

Sufjan Stevens is among the impressive group of musicians contributing to Red Hot's Arthur Russell tribute album (due out 10/21 via Yep Roc), and his cover of "A Little Lost" just premiered over at Pitchfork. You can stream it below, and the song is an instant download if you pre-order the LP from iTunes.

Sufjan Stevens surprised some people when he went electronic on 2010's The Age of Adz, and though it was the first time he made a record like that, it wasn't the first time he made an electronic album. 2001's synth experiment Enjoy Your Rabbit got a vinyl release for its first time ever this year via Asthmatic Kitty, and one of its tracks, "Year of the Tiger," also got a video for the first time (dir. Geoffrey Hoskinson). You can watch that below.

Enjoy Your Rabbit was also reworked as an orchestral album in 2009 by the Osso String Quartet, and was released under the name Run Rabbit Run with arrangements from Nico Muhly, Rob Moose, Gabriel Kahane, Michael Atkinson and more. TONIGHT (7/22) in Central Park, Michael Atkinson's New York orchestra The Knights will be performing the US premiere of a suite from Run Rabbit Run as part of the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts series in between performances of Bela Bartok and Igor Stravinsky. It beings at 7:30 PM, is free, and entry is first come, first served. More info here.

We're not sure exactly how early you need to get on line to get a seat for the show tonight, but we know at least it's not as hard as getting one of the tickets for Shakespeare in the Park which saw many getting to Central Park before dawn this morning. "King Lear," starring John Lithgow and Annette Bening, begins tonight.

The Naumburg series continues with two more concerts in August, and The Knights have other dates including a Brooklyn show at Roulette on September 18.

More details have finally been announced for the Arthur Russell tribute album thatt he Red Hot organization is putting out. The album's being released on YepRoc on October 21, and is now titled Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell (it was initially announced that it'd be called This Is How We Walk on the Moon). The acts involved -- Hot Chip, Robyn, Blood Orange, Jose Gonzalez, Sufjan Stevens, VEGA INTL (aka Neon Indian's Alan Palomo) and many more -- are as diverse as Russell's work, which included heartbreaking acoustic/cello ballads and ahead-of-it's-time dance music.

The compilation is the latest in the benefit album series for Red Hot, which has been raising AIDS and HIV awareness for nearly 25 years, and has put out Dark Was the Night, Red Hot + Rio and many others.

It's been a while since we've heard from Twin Sister, who released their debut album on Domino back in 2011. You may have heard a couple of their songs recently if you saw the crowd-funded Veronica Mars movie, which came out back in March, and is now on home video. The plotline involves the murder of a pop star named Bonnie Deville who is played by Twin Sister's Andrea Estella, and all her songs are by that band. "All Around and Away We Go" is used pretty much verbatim, but "I Want a House" gets reworked with a new title, "Holding My Breath." (You can compare and contrast the original and revamp below.) Here's a plot twist: on the soundtrack, however, both songs are credited to Mr. Twin Sister.

The Veronica Mars soundtrack also features songs by Freddie Gibbs, Sufjan Stevens and Alejandro Escovedo who covers Dandy Warhols' "We Used to Be Friends" (which is the Veronica Mars theme song). Check out the tracklist and the Twin Sister/Mr. Twin Sister streams (via YouTube) below.

As always, the night featured many collaborations--Iggy Pop with New Order, Sufjan Stevens with The National, Nico Muhly with Philip Glass, and so on. Headliner Patti Smith also paid tribute to the late Lou Reed by covering Transformer's "Perfect Day." Video footage of Iggy Pop and New Order playing Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," "Transmission," and NO's own "Californian Grass" are in this post. UPDATE: Footage of The National and Sufjan Stevens performing "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks," "This Is the Last Time," and "I Need My Girl" can also be found below.

More pictures, those videos, and the full Tibet House US 24th Annual Benefit setlist lie after the jump...

Sufjan Stevens collaboratorSon Lux is re-imagining four tracks from his Lanterns album for a new EP, Alternate Worlds, due out May 27. The new version of "Easy" features guest vocals from Lorde and a guitar solo by jazz guitarist Rafiq Bhatia. Listen to all four tracks from the EP below.

Son Lux also has a number of tour dates coming up, including a release show in NYC on May 13 at Le Poisson Rouge which Rafiq Bhatia opens. Tickets for that show are on sale now. All dates are listed below.

In related news, Son Lux and Sufjan's collaborative project with Serengeti, Sisyphus, will release their self-titled album next week (3/18) via Joyful Noise, but you can stream it in full (via The Guardian) now. Listen to that and the new Son Lux EP, with the list of tour dates, below...